Household incomes fell nationwide between 2007 and 2008, while the poverty rate and the number of uninsured went up, according to information released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. In Connecticut, the picture seemed much less bleak, as incomes, poverty rates and the number of uninsured all remained fairly steady.

But local experts advised against being too relieved by the data, as it doesn't take into account all the people in the state who have become unemployed -- and presumably uninsured -- in 2009.

According to the Census Bureau, the median household income in the United States fell 3.6 percent between 2007 and 2008, breaking a string of three years of annual income increases. While incomes dipped, the poverty level rose from 12.5 percent in 2007 to 13.2 percent in 2008.

The number of people without health insurance went up as well, from 45.7 million in 2007 to 46.3 million in 2008. However, the number of insured Americans also went up during that time from 253.4 million to 255.1 million. The percentage of Americans who were uninsured in 2008 was 15.4 percent, roughly the same as in 2007.

According to Census data, median household income in the state actually went up slightly between 2007 and 2008, from $64,141 in 2007 to $64,682 in 2008. The state's percentage of those in poverty dipped slightly from 8.9 percent in 2007 to 8.1 percent in 2008, though the number of uninsured in the state did go up, between 2007 and 2008 from 326,000 to 343,000.

But these numbers don't take into account the possibility of statistical error, said Chuck Nelson, a Census Bureau statistician. If you factor in a margin of error in these categories, he said, changes between 2007 and 2008 are almost non-existent.

Local experts, however, recommended cautious optimism in evaluating Connecticut's data. Barbara Edinberg, assistant director of the Bridgeport Child Advocacy Coalition, said the statistics don't take into account several factors, one of which is the fact that much of the economic strife in Connecticut happened this year.

In Bridgeport alone, she said, the unemployment rate rose from 9.2 percent in July of 2008 to 11.6 percent in July of 2009. With increased unemployment comes an increase in the uninsured, Edinberg said. She said BCAC has seen a huge increase in people seeking information about public health insurance programs, like Husky.

When the Census Bureau releases its 2009 data next year, Edinberg said, she's guessing it will paint a much different picture of Connecticut. "I think you will see an increase, at least in the number of uninsured," she said.

The New Haven-based think tank Connecticut Voices for Children also pointed out in a press release that the percentage of Connecticut residents with employer-sponsored health coverage has been declining over the past decade. Between 2000 and 2001, an average of 77.1 percent of the people under age of 65 in Connecticut had employer-sponsored insurance. Between 2007 and 2008, an average of 71 percent of state residents in that age group were insured through their employer.

Those numbers speak to the importance of programs like Husky, said Sharon Langer, senior policy fellow with Connecticut Voices. Like Edinberg, Langer thinks it's likely the number of uninsured in Connecticut has increased this year, and something needs to be done. "We all know there's been a lot of activity on the federal level regarding health care reform," she said. "This [national] information should obviously inform what's happening on the federal level."

Meanwhile, Edinberg said Connecticut's seemingly stable numbers could be due to the "two Connecticuts" phenomenon that's long been in existence in the state. Connecticut happens to have a number of people living at both the highest and lowest income levels, Edinberg said, so collecting a statewide average often doesn't present an accurate picture of the state's people.

"If you look at the median, it doesn't reflect the very poor," she said.

Nelson, meanwhile, said Connecticut figures follow the pattern of the entire Northeastern United States, which, as a whole, reported no statistically significant changes in any of the major categories between 2007 and 2008.

Elsewhere in the United States, the South saw the biggest dip in median household income, while the Midwest and the West showed the biggest increases in poverty rates, and the South and the West had the highest rate of uninsured.